10/13/2009

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me -- who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
II.

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream --
The Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart; --
As I must on thine,
Oh, belovèd as thou art!
III.

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast; --
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

They were just one metre tall with very long arms, no chins, wrist bones like gorillas and extremely long feet.

In 2003, archaeologists excavating in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores made a discovery that forced scientists to completely rethink conventional theories of human evolution.

They reported the discovery of a new species of human, one that lived as recently as 12,000 years ago, at the same time as modern humans.

But others disagreed, arguing the one-metre-high skeleton was a modern human that suffered from a deformity known as microcephaly.

The debate has raged ever since. But Debbie Argue, a PhD student from the ANU's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, believes she has settled the question by comparing bone fragments from the hobbits to other hominids.

"We compared them to almost every species in our genus, as well as Australopithecine, which was a genus before Homo evolved," Ms Argue said.

"Of course, we included Homo sapiens.

"We discovered that Homo floresiensis ranged off the family tree almost at the beginning of the evolution of our genus, Homo.

"So that would have been over two million years ago, and as such a very, very primitive being."

'Paradigm shift'

Ms Argue's work was published recently in the Journal of Human Evolution.

She describes the work as a paradigm shift in archaeology, overturning the notion that Homo sapiens were the only hominids on the planet after the extinction of Homo erectus and the Neanderthals.

"This is science, so maybe [it's] not the definitive proof but a very, very solid hypothesis," she said.

"This is the first time such a huge and comprehensive set of characteristics about the whole of the body of Homo floresiensis has been but into one analysis."

Ms Argue says her work challenges another major cornerstone in the theory of human evolution.

"This means that something very, very primitive came out of Africa," she said.

"Previous to this we thought that what came out of Africa had modern body proportions and an expanded brain case, but this is a much more primitive being.

"We know that Homo floresiensis was, in Flores at least, from 100,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago. And at that time, or at least from 40,000 years ago, we had modern humans in Asia and New Guinea and Australia.

"So here we were sharing the planet where we thought we'd been the only people that survived after the end of the Neanderthals."

10/07/2009

Mei Trow used modern police forensic techniques, including psychological and geographical profiling, to identify Robert Mann, a morgue attendant, as the killer.

His theory, the result of two years intensive research, is explored in a Discovery Channel documentary, Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed.

Trow's research is rooted in information from a 1988 FBI examination of the Ripper case, which had worked up a comprehensive criminal personality profile.

The portrait drawn up of Jack was as a white male from the lower social classes, most likely the product of a broken home.

It was also thought he would have had a menial job but with some anatomical knowledge, something like a butcher, mortuary or medical examiner's assistant or hospital attendant.

Because of prolonged periods without human interaction, Jack would also have been socially inept

It is known that Mann was from an extremely deprived background. His father was absent for much of his upbringing and he had spent some time as a child in a workhouse.

Trow said: "I wanted to go beyond the myth of a caped man with a top hat and knife, and get to the reality, and the reality is simply that Jack was an ordinary man."

Trow makes another startling conjecture, that the Ripper killed another two women.

He believes Martha Tabram, found with 39 stab wounds to her body in Gunthorpe Street, was the first of Jack's victims, and Alice Mackenzie, brutally murdered eight months after the confirmed five killings, was his last.

The two women, along with Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, would have been delivered to the Whitechapel mortuary in which Robert Mann worked.

After the killing of Polly Nichols, Jack's first recognised victim, Mann unlocked the mortuary for the police so they could examine the body and as such, was called as a witness in her inquest to help establish the cause of death.

Most damningly, he undressed Polly's body with his assistant, despite being under strict instructions from Inspector Spratling to not touch the body, and Trow suspects that this was an opportunity to admire his handiwork.

The Coroner, in his summation of Robert Mann's testimony, concluded that, "It appears the mortuary-keeper is subject to fits, and neither his memory nor statements are reliable."

Professor Laurence Alison, Forensic Psychologist at Liverpool University, who features in the documentary, said: "In terms of psychological profiling, Robert Mann is the one of the most credible suspects from recent years and the closest we may ever get to a plausible psychological explanation for these most infamous of Victorian murders."

Trow's is the latest in a long line of theories about who Jack the Ripper was. More than 100 suspects have been proposed over the years, including a member of the royal family, a doctor and even the artist Walter Sickert.

JACK THE RIPPER: KILLER REVEALED will be aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday October 11 at 9pm. The accompanying book, Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer, is published by Pen & Sword.